Every business is a digital business: Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Every business is a digital business-that is the central message of the Accenture Technology Vision 2013.

The convergence of social media, mobile computing, analytics and the cloud is transforming the way businesses operate, and companies that adopt available technologies to "go digital" will be better positioned to take advantage of rapidly shifting business opportunities, said Trent A. Mayberry, Managing Director, Technology Growth Platform ASEAN, Accenture.

He was referring to the conclusions of the new report by Accenture, which is developed annually by the Accenture Technology Labs.

According to this report, every business is a digital business because technology has become core to virtually every aspect of a business, and all senior leaders - not just CIOs - must be able to understand, embrace and drive value from new technologies that affect their organisation.

Today's software, for example, has the potential to change the very business model of a company or industry in the future, according to the report.

"Organisations and their leaders need to hit the reset button on how they use technology to drive market differentiation, deepen customer relationships, and deliver growth and profitability," said Paul Daugherty, Accenture's chief technology officer. "Our latest Technology Vision report finds that the technology for accomplishing these business goals is available today, but that adopting a new digital mindset is required to harness the potential. The power and reach of converging IT trends such as mobility and cloud means that business leaders need to understand the implications of a software-driven, 'connected everything' world."

The 7 commandments for CXOs

The Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report looks at the future of enterprise IT and makes recommendations for how companies can take advantage of technology and software to improve their competitiveness, operations and business results. These include:

Relationships at Scale: Companies need to leverage technology to create digital relationships at scale. The report argues that while mobile computing, social networks and context-based services have increased connections with consumers, many companies have lost customer intimacy in the process. These connections have been viewed as another communication or transactional channel rather than opportunities to improve relationships.

"Businesses are at an inflection point enabled by new technologies that can take customer relationships beyond transactions and deliver more personalised interactions," said Mayberry, at a media briefing organised in the Accenture Singapore office today. "Effectively developing meaningful relationships at scale requires a real change in how companies approach these strategies and implement a new unified approach across IT and the business."

Design for Analytics: Most of today's enterprise software applications are designed for a specific function and capture only the data needed to complete that function. "What's needed is a strategy that sees data more as a supply chain than a warehouse," said Mayberry.